


i'm a fool with a curse and a crush

by plutos



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pre-Serum, Skinny!Steve, kind of but not really punk at all, more like a guy who just happens to wear a leather jacket and dye his hair, punk!bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 03:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1730192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plutos/pseuds/plutos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He is, of course, slightly confused as to why Steve has been so willing to hang out with him, considering Steve wears khaki pants and tucks his shirt into his belt, but figures if Steve is weird for hanging out with a kid who wears smudged eyeliner and metal studded leather around his wrists, then Bucky is also weird for voluntarily spending time with a skinny as fuck asthmatic who shines his shoes and combs his hair into place every morning."</p><p>aka skinny!steve and punk!bucky, who are really just two teenagers in love</p><p>[<a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/7328611">translation in chinese available</a>]</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm a fool with a curse and a crush

**Author's Note:**

> hola amigos have another au because i cannot help myself apparently. credit for encouragement goes to charlotte, dana, ilayda, literally anyone on twitter who screamed at me about punk!bucky, ilysm  
>    
> i am from cold and rainy england and know approximately zero about the american high school system so if some words are unfamiliar just roll with it please 
> 
> title is from Teenager In Love by Neon Trees, there's a [mix](http://8tracks.com/newtbro/teenager-in-love) to go with this fic if you wanna check it out uwu

Bucky likes to lean against his locker after a nice long smoke outside with Nat and watch Steve Rogers switch out his books for his next class.

The kid must weigh a grand total of ninety pounds dripping wet and looks like a strong breeze could knock him over, and yet there he stands, loading his backpack with textbooks as if they don’t make his back bend unnaturally when he slugs it on his shoulders and marches to class like he’s storming the Bastille. Or something. Bucky’s not so good with history.

He usually trails after Rogers, following him even though half of Bucky’s classes are in the other direction. The only class they share is AP French, because Steve can speak enough to get by and Bucky’s practically fluent. Almost all his classes are languages, but Steve’s vary enough for Bucky not to be able to guess what Steve wants to do with his life. Well, that’s not true, everyone and their mother knows that Rogers wants to join the goddamn army. As if they’d ever take him.

It’s not like Bucky _stalks_ Steve or anything. It’s more that he finds him...interesting.

Bucky might wear a leather jacket and dye the tips of his bangs different colours every month, but he’s still a person who’s interested in who he’s interested in. Just because he hangs out with Nat, the Ice Queen of the whole fucking school, and occasionally fools around with her, doesn’t mean he’s got a type, or even that he’s strictly into the ladies. For whatever reason though, he finds himself inevitably drawn towards a skinny little shit who doesn’t know when to shut his goddamn mouth and keep his head down.

Bucky and Steve don’t interact; Bucky watches from the sidelines and Rogers probably only knows he exists from the huge fiasco in Junior year where some German asshole of an exchange student dislocated his left arm by pushing him off the roof of the pavilion where he likes to smoke and brood about the world in general.

Bucky likes to think he looks out for the kid though, glaring at anyone who laughs when he drops his inhaler and slamming assholes who think hiding all of Steve’s clothes after gym is a funny thing to do into lockers. Sometimes though, Rogers brings it all upon himself. Bucky can’t help but cringe and hope no one will take him seriously when he pipes up about the treatment of the women in the books they read in French, when he walks up to guys and tells them to stop being such assholes, when he refuses to back down even when its four against one and their muscles are bigger than his head. Bucky agrees with Steve, he really does, but fuck it all if Rogers has a 4.0 GPA and zero common sense. They’re in a small town American high school for crying out loud, Steve should really expect what gets dished out to him.

“Mooning over Rogers again?” Nat asks, flicking his ear and breaking him out of his train of thought.

He scowls and smooths his hair down, even though Nat hasn’t touched it.

“I’m not doin’ anythin’, leave me alone,” he mutters.

Nat laughs, her red hair brushing her shoulders and swishing prettily, belying her true nature. Nat is a wasp dressed up as a bumble bee, happily buzzing until she decides she wants to _sting_. She links her arm through his and he pushes off the locker, whacking his foot against the metal and producing a loud clanging sound, making half the corridor jump and scuttle away.

He wonders whether Steve would startle at the loud noises Bucky makes occasionally, suddenly, not just to be a dick and make people jump, but genuinely because he’s always been quiet up to the point when he’s _not_ anymore, and that sometimes freaks people out. Bucky mostly stalks the hallways silently, his boots not even squeaking on the overshined floors, but sometimes he clatters down them like he’s on the warpath, for no particular reason, more that he just can, pure and simple.

He thinks maybe Steve would roll his eyes at Bucky’s silent and mysterious assassin act and be amused when he decides to make as much noise as humanly possible. This, of course, is just speculation: Bucky doesn’t know Steve at all.

He just really, _really_ wants to.

~*~

School always runs slow like treacle, Bucky’s eyes feeling heavier by the hour and his craving for something to do with his fingers and mouth manifesting into a dire need for a cigarette. He and Nat smoke out behind the shed down the allotments, now that the pavilion is a no go for him, but it’s fucking freezing in the winter and hot as hell in the summer.

Bucky sits and plucks at the threads of his tshirt for most of his classes, only paying attention to his language classes, and even then barely because he can breeze through them with his eyes closed. The people who know  (Nat and Clint, his immediate family, and maybe a few teachers), are impressed with his linguistic skills, but most in the school could not give less of a shit about him so most just don’t know about his talent. He started reading foreign newspapers as a kid when his dad would bring them home from wherever he’d been that time, French and German and Russian and Malay, not stopping because it was easy enough to pick up. His parents noticed and brought him childrens books in different languages until he’d burnt through those and moved onto novels, textbooks, really boring fuck ass essays on how to dissect a frog in Spanish. He doesn't know where his predilection towards linguistics comes from as neither his parents or his three sisters have shown any kind of special talent towards them, but he’s now eighteen and speaks thirteen languages, being fluent in seven of them.

He doesn’t advertise it to people, the fact that he sticks behind and gathers extra homework and subsequently extra credits in his language classes, the fact that he owes the library several overdue books in obscure languages that he just doesn’t want to give back, the fact that he holes himself up in his room and puts his music on loud not just because he’s being a petulant teenager and avoiding the teasing of his sisters but because he just wants to learn Japanese in _peace_ , goddamnit.

Classes are still boring as shit though, and Bucky barely tolerates the droning of his teachers and the pain of sitting through a class with a jackass like Tony Stark trying to fuck things up and poke the Banner kid in the sides with several different scientific instruments despite the fact that everyone knows Bruce has anger management issues.

At least he doesn’t sleep through his classes, unlike Clint.

The bell rings shrilly and Bucky slides all his shit into his bag and slings the ratty thing over his shoulder, palming the light in his pocket and eagerly anticipating skipping his next class for a smoke out back. He can almost taste the nicotine in his veins when someone slams into him from behind and all their books skitter across the floor. Bucky steps over them without looking back, shrugging angrily and growling, “Watch where the fuck you’re going,” before continuing down the corridor.

He burns through his cigarette with the cool air of early spring chilling his arms and flicks the butt on the ground, grinding it with his heel into dust. He’s in the mood to make a lot of noise, so as he walks down the corridors he trails his hand across the lockers and whistles a jaunty tune loudly, probably interrupting every teacher trying to impart their oh-so-important knowledge along the way.

He rocks up to geometry late, and when his teacher glares at him he gives her a sarcastic thumbs up and tells her he’s _absolutely_ ready to fuck around with triangles for half an hour. They’re all used to him by now, or they just don’t care anymore, because she waves him off and he trails along to a seat in the back, kicking the chair and scraping it across the floor before dumping all his shit on the desk, smiling genially at those who glare at him for the racket he’s making.

He genuinely could not give less of a shit about anything related to math, but he scribbles down a few notes because he doesn’t actually want to fail out of school.

He sees Rogers in the corridor after class, looking flustered and clutching a bunch of books with bent pages against his chest, which is weird since he usually carries all of them in his backpack. But as Bucky stealthily passes, back into mystery assassin mode after his display earlier, he can see there’s a large rip in Steve’s backpack, and his his heart clenches in his chest when he realises the kid who walked into him earlier was probably Steve.

Nat sidles up on his right side and joins him in watching Steve, while Clint whacks him on the back of the head and skips along on his left. Bucky sticks his foot out and watches as Clint trips, flailing and sputtering, before shrugging like nothing’s happened and pointedly not looking at the way Nat and Bucky’s lips have curled up at the corners.

The three of them stride down the hallway together, side by side, and Bucky keeps his eyes on Steve until he has to turn at the end of the hallway, the wings painted on his heels disappearing with him.

~*~

The wings are kind of a big thing to Bucky. They don’t represent anything to him personally, but he’s seen Steve draw them enough times to know that they mean something to him. They’re pretty, Bucky thinks, and obscure enough that they look just like any other meaningless doodle that a bored as fuck teenager would scrawl down the margins of a blank sheet of paper. Bucky likes them because they make him think of Steve, and thinking of Steve makes his heart go tight in his chest and his breath punch out of him like he can’t breathe.

He remembers when he’d first drawn them onto his boots, carefully stenciled as an exact representation of Steve’s drawings. His aren’t white though, because that’d be far too obvious and would also stand out vividly against the black of his boots. His are outlined in gold and filled in with navy, his two favourite colours, and no one but Nat has noticed them in the two years he’s had them painted on, two years after he first noticed Steve. He’s been holding a flickering flame on a melting candle for the kid ever since.

Nat exasperatedly puts up with his pining, even though he refuses to call it that. It’s more like… overwhelming affection. Considering Steve doesn’t know him from Adam it’s kinda impressive he’s managed to keep the flame burning for so long.

 _The day after tomorrow is the weekend_ , Bucky reminds himself as he yanks his shoes off and throws his jacket onto the coat rack, hollering a quick hello to his mom and receiving a reply that she’s in the kitchen. He narrows his eyes. Being in the kitchen means he has to interact with other people. But he hasn’t actually talked to his mom other than a quick goodbye every morning in over a week, which means he’s overdue for actual eye contact with her.

When he walks into the kitchen his mom is washing the dishes with her back towards the door and Rebecca is lounging in what she likes to call ‘her’ chair, despite the fact she moved out over a year ago.

She whoops when she sees him, smothers him in a hug and tugs on his coloured bangs when he groans dramatically, which are electric blue this month.

“It’s good to see you too, little bro,” she says, smiling winningly at him. He glares at her, hiding his smile in the inside of the fridge as he pretends to look for a snack. His mom smacks him on the ass with a dishcloth and tells him to eat an apple, not that ‘trash’ that passes as food these days.

“Mom,” he whines, “If there’s food in the fridge I’m gonna eat it.”

“Yeah,” Rebecca pipes up, “He’s still a growing boy remember.”

He glares harder as both of them laugh, snatching the apple from off the counter and storming up to his room. He’s always hated being the youngest of four, always hated being the only boy in the family, always hated being coddled by his mom and sisters when dad died, leaving Bucky bereft of someone to look up to.

He’d loved his dad, had spent every moment with him whenever he was home, clung to his hand and counted cars with him as they sat on the sidewalk and Bucky tried to talk around a mouthful of melting ice cream. He’d died when Bucky was fourteen, and he’d locked himself in his room for days, stopped talking, and when he did talk it wasn’t in English. He knows now that he’d scared his family, that they were worried he’d withdraw more into himself than he already had been, but by the time he was fifteen he’d met Nat and started ripping holes in his jeans.

He knows he’d scared his family then too. Bucky had always been a polite young boy, taking pride in his appearance in a way kids don’t usually do. He’d stand next to his dad on a stool in the bathroom and copy him as he slicked down his hair, pretended to shave along with him but only really ended up covering his face in foam and a tacky bitter taste in his mouth. His dad had never gotten around to teaching Bucky how to shave properly.

Now he dyes his hair unnatural colours and has the cartilage of his ears pierced, wears the same jacket he has since his mom gave him it and told him his dad had bought it for Bucky’s fifteenth. He wears leather cuffs on his wrists, bites his nails down to the quick, and he’s learned how to smudge eyeliner on so it looks good rather than the absolute black mess of panda eyes it had been the first time he attempted it.

It was actually Rebecca who’d taught him that, had taken one look at him and simply said, “No,” before dragging him up to her room with a hand wrapped tight around his wrist. She’d sat him down and taught him how to keep a steady hand, quietly showed him how to smudge it just enough to look edgy. She’d held him while he cried, tracks of the eyeliner he’d so painstakingly put on running down his cheeks and staining her shirt a dirty black.

He can hear her creep up the stairs to his room now, and subtly turns his music down in a way that tells her _yes_ , she can come in if she wants. He really has missed her this past year, despite the fact he hates the way she will grab him in a headlock and nuggie the shit out of him at a moments notice.

“Hey baby bro,” she says quietly as she comes in, the door slipping shut behind her.

“Hey big sis,” he replies, also quietly. She smiles and goes to sit on his bed, Bucky spinning around in the chair next to his desk to face her. She’s eyeing his shelves full of foreign books and he blushes a bit. His collection has definitely grown since he last saw her.

“Still eating languages for breakfast, huh?” She grins.

“Shut up,” he mutters, laughing.

“Come here okay, lemme take a good look at you.”

He obediently shuffles over and sits on the bed next to her, staring awkwardly at his shoes.

“Jesus, James, you’ve grown,” and he blushes even harder.

She laughs. “Y’know, you’re not very punk rock when you do that,” she says, and Bucky whacks her in the face with a pillow.

“Would’ya shut up, I’m not _punk rock_ , I’m just ex-”

“-pressing your inner soul, blah blah blah, black nail paint and a giant crush on the class nerd. How’s _that_ going by the way?” She waggles her eyebrows. “Has little Steve Rogers grown as much as you?”

He tries very hard not to snort out loud. Steve hasn’t grown in all the time Bucky’s known him, is still the same scrawny ass, loud mouth kid as he was when Bucky first punched some jerk in the face for him when they were fourteen. Bucky had still been smarting from the death of his beloved dad, and Steve was standing up for a young girl with new braces, his tiny frame dodging the right hook of some uppity teen with something to prove and Bucky had _snapped_ , had stormed up to the guy and slammed him into the locker, shoving his knuckles up close and personal with the guy’s nose. His hand has bruised, the other guy bled like a motherfucker, and Steve had told him that he didn’t need protecting.

“I had him on the ropes,” he’d said, shoulders back and defiant.

“Sure you did, kid,” Bucky had replied, “I was just helping a fella out.”

Since then nothing much had changed; Bucky has put a few layers of muscle and shot up a couple of inches, switched the tips of his hair from red to pink to a very ill advised shade of green, and Steve still sticks up for the nerds and outcasts who get picked on every day of the week, still tries out for the sports team every year despite the fact that he wheezes into his inhaler every three seconds when he runs, still looks like he would snap in half if Bucky ever held him close and tight like he’s thought about more than a few times.

“Steve Rogers,” he drawls, “does not know who I am.”

“Oh god, not this again,” he hears Rebecca mutter through the pillow he’s got mashed on his face in utter despair.

“Man the fuck up,” she yells, leaning in close. He whacks her in the face with the pillow again.

“It’s not as easy as all that,” he whines. “I can’t just walk up to him and be all, ‘hey, wanna hang out behind the shed some time?’” He flails his hands about, hopefully expressing his level of frustration. “He’d have an asthma attack just being near me!”

Rebecca narrows her eyes. “You’re not smoking again, are you?”

“That’s not the point!” he cries, avoiding the subject entirely. “The point is that he doesn’t know I _exist_ , and even if he did, he wouldn’t like me. He hates jerks like me.”

She glares at him flatly. “Stop being so fucking dramatic. Quit the smoking, stop staring at him from afar like a creeper, and actually talk to the fucker before school ends and you never see him again.” She pats him on the knee. “You’re not a jerk,” she says quietly. “You’re my baby bro, and if you wanna fuck skinny Steve, then fuck him you shall.”

He splutters and she laughs, throwing her head back, and shoves him off the bed.

~*~

Bucky’s not really got a plan when it comes to actually talking to Steve. Staring at him from a distance has worked for him since he was fourteen years old, and nothing bad has happened in the four years he’s been doing it, so he doesn’t want to jinx anything by screwing up a system that already works. Don’t fix what ain’t broke, and all that jazz.

“So you’re actually thinking of, y’know, interacting with him like he’s a real human being and not some angel of the Lord,” Clint asks, but it sounds less like a question and more like a judgement. Bucky glares at him (and _shit_ , he’s convinced he spends ninety percent of his time glaring at people, maybe he should cut that down) until he raises his hands in surrender.

Nat, however, has no such qualms when it comes to calling Bucky out on his bullshit, and just wades on in like his problems barely graze her ankles whereas they really feel to him as if they’re drowning him in high waters.

“And you think, what, quitting smoking is gonna make him _like_ you?”

“Call it sisterly advice,” he says. “Plus, it’ll save me a lot of money. Cigarettes aren’t cheap y’know.”

“We know,” both Clint and Nat sigh at the same time. He rolls his eyes. So maybe he’s talked about how smoking is ripping up his wallet more than once. A few times. Every week.

So sue him, he’s got better things to do with his money than waste it on tobacco and nicotine. Like buying Steve new pencils or something.

So he quits smoking, but his fingers still twitch for something to mess with and his mouth still feels empty with nothing to pucker on, and he still doesn’t approach Steve. He tries chewing on his pencils, but they taste bitter and gross and he ends up making unattractive faces more than anything. He tries sucking on pens, but those explode in his mouth more often than not and that _certainly_ isn’t attractive and also does not taste good in the slightest. Nat rolls her eyes when he stares longingly at her cigarettes, and so she quits too, out of solidarity rather than any actual desire either way.

His mom suggests non-sugared candy when he whines about not being able to stave off his cravings, after she gets over smacking him round the back of the head for smoking in the first place. The non-sugared part is shit, but the candy part he can dig, and so he makes his way to the local newsagents on a Saturday with a vague plan to stock up on lollipops and suck on them until the urge to pick up a smoke goes away.

To say he’s surprised when he opens the door and sees Steve stood behind the counter is an understatement. He stares at him in shock for a bit, until Steve raises his eyebrows and prompts Bucky to hesitantly approach the counter, scuffing his feet along the way. He suddenly remembers the wings painted on his heels and resists the urge to turn tail and run the fuck away.

“I need lollipops,” he announces abruptly, wincing at the curtness of his statement.

Steve raises his eyebrows again, making them look like they don’t fit on his thin face. “Lollipops, we got lots of. What kind do you want?” he asks, leaning his elbows on the countertop.

“There’s more than one type?” Bucky blurts dumbly. If he’s honest, he’s more shocked that he’s producing actual coherent sentences than he is embarrassed about the dumb shit that’s coming out of his mouth. Rogers manages to turn his brain to mouth filter to mush, unfortunately for him.

Steve chuckles. “Yes, there’s more than one type,” he says slowly.

He proceeds to point at each brand of lollipop they stock, and Bucky watches his long fingers but doesn’t absorb any of the words.

“Wait, fuck, can’t I just buy a red one and get it over with,” he says finally, thoroughly confused at the mind boggling amount of candy Steve just recited at him.

Steve swallows. “Sure,” he says, a forced looking smile on his face.

He picks up a round red lollipop, rings it up on the cashier, and hands it over when Bucky pays. Their hands don’t touch. Bucky pulls off the wrapper, crinkles it in his pocket, and shoves the lollipop in his mouth, keeping eye contact with Rogers as he sucks. It’s the most brazen thing he’s ever done in front of Steve, which isn’t saying much considering he and Steve have interacted a grand total of one time before, and he blushes hard as he walks out the shop, shoulders to the cool wind and the taste of cherry warm on his tongue.

~*~

He goes through a lot of lollipops after that, dropping by in the shop every day after school to make meaningless small talk with Steve. He learns that Steve doesn’t work on Tuesday and Fridays, is replaced by a girl named Peggy in the year below with wavy brown hair and killer lipstick. Bucky says as much when he sees her, and they strike up an unusual friendship in which he teaches her how to dye her hair and put on eyeliner without looking like a grade-a twat and she talks to him about Steve.

Through Peggy he learns that Steve goes to church every Sunday, draws almost constantly, doesn’t like green beans but will eat pretty much any other vegetable, and takes his coffee as black as Bucky’s boots, among other things. He’s pretty sure Peggy’s figured out about his massive crush on Rogers; she’s not dumb and certainly doesn’t hold back, much like Rebecca, telling him to get his shit together and actually talk to the damn kid.

Under the influence of hers and Nat’s and Rebecca’s glares, he tentatively starts to greet Steve in the hallways, grinning at him around his lollipop in French class. He wonders absently when he became so whipped by the women in his life, and then promptly decides he doesn’t give a shit when Steve starts smiling back.

But christ, if Steve isn’t the prettiest boy Bucky ever did see. His smile lights up his whole face, his lips such a pretty shade of red, his eyes the clearest blue, his hair the most soft looking cornflower blonde. His shoulders are narrow, arms and legs lanky and nobbly, all elbows and knees. Bucky’s seen him without his shirt on, has seen how you could probably count every one of his ribs in turn, climb ladders over his ribcage; has seen the way his shoulder blades and collar bones and hip bones stick out and has thought about dragging his hands and mouth across each one, pressing his fingers into Steve’s skin and watching purple bloom on his flesh that won’t disappear for days.

He screws up whatever courage he has left in him one day after gym class, casually walks over to where Steve is tying his shoes, and picks up his bag, ignoring Steve’s quizzical look and leading them out of the locker room and into the cafeteria instead, dumping Steve’s bag next to him on one of the benches.

“Hey! You can’t just-”

“Can’t just what? Eat lunch? Shut up and sit down, Rogers,” he huffs, avoiding Steve’s eyes and rummaging around for the chocolate bar he knows his mom packed for him this morning. It’s easier to be short and caustic with Steve than it is to be actually _nice_ , and he can see Nat looking disapprovingly at him from across the cafeteria. She doesn’t move though, stays seated with Clint and the Banner kid, eating her salad slowly and watching Bucky like a hawk. He salutes her with his can of fanta, and carries on ignoring Steve.

He forces Steve to eat lunch with him a few times a week after that, springs it on him out of nowhere and just expects Steve to play along. He does, every time. They don’t talk much, if at all, but Bucky eventually eases up enough that his shoulders are no longer hunched up by his ears for the entire duration of the lunch hour.

Steve must pick up on this, because he quietly starts to talk about his day, about how he saw some girl playing all by herself in the park, saw some guy defacing The Catcher in the Rye in the library, about how fucking cold it is outside despite the fact that it’s the middle of April. Bucky usually hums in response, until one day Steve is telling him about how his friend Sam can make a circle with his tongue and Bucky laughs, sticking his tongue out and doing what Steve is describing. He twists his tongue inside out and upside down as well, and Steve gapes at him.

“How the hell did you do that?” he asks, wide eyed.

“I don’t fuckin’ know pal, I just do it,” he replies, chuckling.

He and Steve spend the next twenty minutes sticking their tongues out at each other, Steve’s touching the very tip of his nose and Bucky throwing his head back and laughing when he immediately rubs off the damp with his sleeve, pulling a disgusted face.

It breaks the ice somewhat, and Nat stops staring at him from across the cafeteria and instead joins he and Steve, dragging Clint along with her. Steve takes this as his cue to get Sam to join their little table, the five of them all squished onto one bench, together. Steve still sits next to him every lunch, just now he steals Bucky’s chocolate milk whenever he has it and checks over Clint’s calculus homework for him. Sam teaches Bucky a few fancy card tricks, and in turn he and Nat teach him as many swear words in Russian as they can come up with.

It works, and Bucky keeps sucking on his lollipops and Steve keeps smiling like he’s gonna split his cheeks sometime in the near future.

~*~

After that, the five of them segue into a little group that are hardly ever seen without another member walking by their side. Nat and Bucky no longer smoke so they stop forcing Clint to stand outside with them, and subsequently don't have to listen to his constant complaints about the cold anymore. Bucky walks to class with Steve and Sam when he sees them, sometimes just Steve and sometimes just Sam, and he puts effort in there because Sam is important to Steve which makes him important to Bucky too.

Sam's on the track team, and it confuses Bucky in the beginning as to why he's even friends with Steve, but Sam tells him all about how Steve is his next door neighbor, and the only person on the street to come around and give his condolences when Sam's dad died out in Afghanistan.

Bucky gets it then. Sam's not like him, doesn't have the habit of bottling up every issue inside himself and squashing them down to deal with on his own, rather he thrives off being able to talk to people. When he finds out Bucky's dad also died, he invites him round to his house and shows him all the photos of he and his dad, the baseball glove his dad gave him for his sixteenth, birthday cards addressed to 'the falcon', a nickname his dad had given him apparently. Bucky's extremely uncomfortable until he's suddenly not anymore, and he spends half an hour with his hands shaking and hot tears dripping down his cheeks while Sam sits beside him on his bed and runs a hand down his back.

They don't talk about it, but it's easier after that, and eventually Bucky invites Sam over and asks his mom to get out all the stuff they'd hidden away to do with his dad. Bucky hasn't wanted to look at it in years, for fear that he'd remember something about his dad that would taint his preserved memory of him, but with Sam's help he's realised that every memory is a good memory, and being able to talk about it is a step forward. His mom comes and stands in the doorway while Bucky shows Sam his dad's books, the lucky socks he wore on game days, the photo of Bucky and all his sisters hanging off his arms near a lake on a holiday to Wisconsin, quietly talking about each one as Sam nods along and his mom tears up across the room. She smothers him in a hug as soon as Sam leaves, and Bucky goes willingly, laughing wetly when she tugs on the spikes in his ears.

"I'm so glad, James, I'm so glad," she repeats. She doesn't say what she's glad for because she doesn't have to, and Bucky just nods along and tries not to think of the picture they make, his mom with her pastel skirts and frilly cardigans holding on to a boy dressed in all black, rips and frayed edges, bright blue in his hair and leather cuffs on his wrists. It doesn't matter what they look like, they're family and that's what counts.

He hasn't invited Steve around yet, despite the fact that they spend near every moment together at school and in the shop. Bucky lets Steve steal a headphone and listen to the music he likes, old records of The Jam and The Rolling Stones crackling through his ears, lets him doodle on his arms during lunch when they've got nothing better to do, coming home covered in swirls of flowers or a depiction of the Golden Gate Bridge printed on the inside of his arm, eagles and stars and stripes and a shield around Bucky's right elbow, drawings that don't get washed away as long as Bucky can help it.

He walks Steve home, sometimes, when Sam has track practice and can't walk with him as he usually does, even though it's in the exact wrong direction to his own house. If Steve notices, he doesn't comment, and they spend long, lazy minutes trailing along the pavement and chatting about what colour Bucky should dye his bangs next.

"I liked them when they were pink," Steve says.

"You noticed my pink bangs?" Bucky asks, surprised. He'd dyed them pink last year, and he's almost a hundred percent sure Steve didn't know he existed back then.

Steve rolls his eyes. "Everyone noticed your pink bangs. People were still talking about your dislocated arm. You were a hot topic for a while back there."

"A hot topic, huh? Well how about that." He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, wetting it with his tongue.

"I'm thinkin' about gettin' my lip pierced." Steve looks at him. "Or my tongue, y'know, whatever," he says quickly.

"Don't you think you've got enough piercings already?" Steve asks, reaching up and tugging on Bucky's earlobe despite the fact that he doesn't have any piercings there. They're all in the cartilage further up, lined up like little multi colored spikes, and his other ear has a cuff and chain. He got an eyebrow piercing done over the winter holidays, just a little stud over his right one, and Bucky really likes it so he doesn't see why he should stop there.

Steve shakes his head. "At least you don't want your nose pierced, you'd look like a goon if you did that," he says.

Bucky stares at him with an open mouth. "You little punk!," he exclaims, laughing and shoving Steve gently in the shoulder. Steve still stumbles, but he's laughing too so it's okay, the late afternoon light turning his hair bright gold.

"Jerk," he says back, and Bucky slings an arm around his skinny shoulders and they continue walking to Steve's house exactly like that.

~*~

It's weird how people stop picking on Steve as soon as Bucky forms his little gang around him. Maybe it's Nat's reputation for not putting up with anyone's shit, or Clint's obsession with tank tops that show off his biceps, or the way Bucky glares at anyone and everyone who gets even slightly close to Steve. Nat says he looks close to hissing at other people, and Bucky would be embarrassed if it wasn't so effective at keeping Steve safe.

He can't be there for everything though, and he hears about Steve's asthma attack in the middle of gym class, half an hour after it happens.

He clatters into the nurses room, completely ignoring the receptionist on duty when she exclaims loudly that he can't be in there, wild eyed and not caring about the picture he makes: red cheeks and messed up hair, shoes half on backwards after rushing through getting changed so he could get to Steve and make sure he's okay.

He's ended up skipping out on half his class, but he doesn't give a shit, considering Steve is sat there puffing on his inhaler like it's going out of style.

“Shit, Steve, what the fuck,” he pants when he skids to a halt, the heels of his boots leaving hot skid marks on the shiny floor.

Steve smiles weakly. “Heya, Buck.”

“Don’t ‘heya Buck’ me, kid, jesus christ, you scared the ever lovin’ shit outta me.” He shakes his head, goes to join Steve on the med bed, and watches how his shoulders are hunched up by his ears and how he’s holding onto his inhaler so hard his knuckles have turned white.

“Hey,” he says quietly, “this place sucks.” Steve snorts. It does, actually, suck. The walls are a tacky grey colour and the bedspread has a pattern like the ones on those awful school buses, the mattress is thin as all get out and the lighting is doing Steve about zero favours, throwing into relief his hollow cheeks and pale skin.

Bucky nudges him with his shoulder. “Wanna break outta here?”

“Fuck yeah,” breathes Steve, and Bucky laughs, grabbing his hand and dragging him upwards, subtly taking as much of Steve’s weight as he can without actually carrying the kid out of there.

They end up behind the shed, breathing in the warm May air, Bucky sucking on another lollipop and Steve periodically taking breaths from his inhaler.

“What’s with the lollipop thing anyway?,” Steve says finally, peering over his skinny arms wrapped around his skinny knees and looking at Bucky, who still has the whole red thing shoved into his mouth in one go.

“I stopped smokin’, didn’t I,” he mumbles around his mouthful.

“I’d noticed,” Steve drawls and smiles at him. “Why’d you stop?”

“Well,” he says, popping the lolly out of his mouth and licking his lips. He knows how red they go when he’s finished a lolly, absorbing the abhorrent amount of e-numbers in the candy and staining his mouth a cherry colour to reflect the taste. “I decided to hang out with this kid who’d’a had an asthma attack every time I got within ten feet of him if I carried on lighting up every day.”

Steve stares at him, until Bucky can’t stand the silence anymore and shoves the lolly back in his mouth and Steve laughs, warm and bright, pushes Bucky away with his hand connected to the side of Bucky’s head. Bucky sways more than anything, caught a little off guard, and knocks his shoulder into Steve’s in retaliation, both of them giggling in the sunlight and Steve’s inhaler lying forgotten on the ground.

"You didn't have to do that for me, jerk."

"Whatever you say, punk."

~*~

He forgets, often, what image he presents to the world. A bunch of people, his sisters included, call him a punk, a handful of people call him a hipster, a few call him a smart kid, but Bucky just calls himself Bucky and shrugs at whoever asks him what ‘style’ he’s going for.

His haircut is homemade and choppy, dip dyed bangs falling in his eyes, now bright pink thanks to Steve. He wears the same two pairs of jeans everywhere, one pair black and skinny as hell with a red bandana pulled through the belt loops, and the other grey and covered in rips and tears, fraying at the edges and one pocket torn almost entirely off. He has others, he just can’t be bothered to wear them, because these ones are worn and comfortable and make his ass look fantastic, _thank-you-very-much_.

His shirts are a mess, usually crumpled because he’s thrown the on the floor the night before and hasn’t bothered to fold them properly, or even put them in the wash. He actually owns a crop top, which is embarrassing beyond belief, and he only wears it when he has literally nothing else. Most of his shirts are either black or white, a few are red, but Bucky’s colour palette in the wardrobe department is woefully lacking, and anything his mom or sisters buy him for Christmas that has any kind of cartoon or ‘ironic’ slogan on goes straight in the bin. Rebecca has bought him shirts with anime on for the past three years, and Bucky actually bypasses the trash entirely and just sets those ones on fire.

He doesn’t think he’s punk, he’s no where near extreme enough to fit in with that crowd, rather he just likes his leather jacket and safety pins, wears his old clothes until they literally start to unravel rather than buy new ones, listens to his music loud because he likes it that way. He doesn’t only have the Ramones and Adam and the Ants on his iPod, he actually has a soft spot for a bit of old jazz and stuff from the forties, back when music was slow and soothing rather than racy and angry.

He’s not some edgy punk rocker: he walks to school like every other kid who can’t afford a car, loves him mom something fierce, gets teased endlessly by his sisters over skype, does his homework and hands it in on time because that was what he was brought up to do and that’s what garners respect.

He is, of course, slightly confused as to why Steve has been so willing to hang out with him, considering Steve wears khaki pants and tucks his shirt into his belt, but figures if Steve is weird for hanging out with a kid who wears smudged eyeliner and metal studded leather around his wrists, then Bucky is also weird for voluntarily spending time with a skinny as fuck asthmatic who shines his shoes and combs his hair into place every morning.

Neither of them are as dorky as Sam though, who’s mom bakes them all cookies.

(Clint eats nearly all of them.)

~*~

It stays on Bucky’s mind, though, why Steve decided to non-verbally say yes to being Bucky's friend, in between stray thoughts in different languages and lingering fantasies about having Steve underneath him and writhing.

He thinks about Steve a lot more now that they're actually friends. It's not that he _didn't_ think about him a lot before, more that now he knows that Steve's ticklish around his ribs and his legs are longer than Bucky's and he knows how Steve's back looks arched when he's taking his shirt off, ninety percent more of his time is dedicated to thinking about Steve. And also sex. But mostly sex with Steve.

He lies on his back in bed at night and slides his hand into his boxers, fists his dick and thinks about Steve's hands doing this to him. He tugs on his piercings and thinks about Steve sucking them with his tongue, wet and hot against Bucky's skin. He imagines Steve above him, on top of him, snapping his hips and leaving bruises on the backs of Bucky's thighs from his sharp hipbones, making him feel full and dirty, lube everywhere and his head thrown back against his pillow, not even trying to stifle his groans.

He wakes up hard some mornings from hazy dreams about Steve spooning him from behind and lazily rubbing off against his ass, or his head between Steve's thighs and Steve's hands in his hair, whispering that he's doing _so well_ , _just a little deeper_ , _swallow like a good boy_. He doesn't really know where his subconscious desire to please Steve comes from, and he reckons Steve's about as strong as he looks, but still could easily make Bucky do anything he wants with a single look and murmurs of hushed praise, combined with Bucky's complete and utter devotion to him and willingness to put all his trust in Steve's hands.

Steve gives off the aura of a guy with a big dick who doesn't like to brag about it, and Bucky can totally work with that, can a hundred percent imagine Steve dominating the fuck out of him as long as he's the only one who knows.

So he spends a lot of time in the shower with his right hand, under the covers and in his boxers, thinking about Steve Rogers. He's a teenage boy with a crush, so sue him.

He thinks pretty much everyone knows about his huge affection erection for Steve except Steve himself, who casually tootles along and doesn't notice how Bucky swallows hard when he bends down to pick up his books, how he nervously looks away when he licks his lips after a long drink of water at lunch, how Sam and Nat and Clint _and_ Peggy all smack him round the back of the head when he's been staring at Steve too long to be considered normal.

Even Rebecca thinks his pining has grown to idiot levels, and she tells him as much over one of their skype chats.

“How’s it going with skinny Steve?” she asks, popping an m&m in her mouth and crunching on it loudly, crackling over the speakers in Bucky’s room.

He winces. “We’re friends now,” he admits reluctantly.

She blinks at him for a moment, before bursting into a flurry of cheers and clapping, sarcastically throwing a mini party for his small success.

“So when are you gonna make your move?” she says, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Uh, how about _never_ ,” he scoffs.

“Don’t be ridiculous baby bro, you could hit that with your eyes closed,” she protests.

He groans and buries his head in his hands, hiding his absolute despair over his sister telling him he could have sex with Steve Rogers in his palms.

"Please never say 'baby bro' and 'hit that' in the same sentence ever again."

"Aw, come on kid, I can feel you pining through the godamn computer." She looks completely unimpressed, an expression that's not uncommon on her face.

Out of all his sisters, Rebecca is the one he's the closest to. Theresa is six years older and never really had the time to connect with him, which is fine considering she's kind of a prissy so-and-so anyway. Ruby's lips had curled when he'd told them awkwardly about his massive crush on Steve and how he thought he probably liked guys a fair bit, and they've pretty much avoided each other since. His mom says his dad would have been proud of him, but he doesn't know for sure, and Ruby must have learned it from somewhere so he can't help but think that maybe his dad would have disapproved.

But, no, his dad loved him no matter what, even when he came home covered in mud and smothered it all over his sisters clothes and made them cry.

She watches him rub his eyes tiredly and frown at the screen.

"I just- I just really don't want to screw it up," he says quietly.

"Look, James. You are the spitting image of Dad-" he makes a face and she holds up a hand, stopping him. "You absolutely are and you know it."

He sighs. He knows. His dad used to clap his hands on Bucky's shoulders and call him 'mini me' whenever they posed for a photo, and the less sensitive side of the family dabbed their eyes and told him how much he reminded them of his father the day of the funeral.

"So do what Dad did to woo Mom and hold his hand at a game or something, and hope to god he doesn't shake it off like it's no big deal." She frowns. "Rogers is a good kid, he wouldn't hate you James. No one could, god, look at you, you're like a puppy."

He glares at her. "I wear a leather jacket and listen to rock music; I am not a puppy."

She snorts. "Keep telling yourself that, bro."

After she signs off and he closes his laptop, he stares at the wall for a while and imagines scenarios where he makes a move on Steve. Buys him flowers, kisses him at his locker, takes him to prom or something equally as lame as that. But every situation he thinks of ends with Steve telling him no, thanks but no thanks, and awkwardly avoiding him for the remaining months of their Senior year before fucking off to the army without saying goodbye.

That would never _actually_ happen, of course. The army would never take Steve.

But he can't help but feel that he has nothing to offer Steve, nothing to make him think that dating Bucky would be a good idea. Bucky'd be a shit boyfriend: he's never had a steady relationship and he's already so scared of screwing up their friendship that he reckons he'd be literally paralysed if they ever attempted a relationship of the romantic nature. He knows nothing about romance other than what he's read in poncy French books and seen in dumb Hollywood movies, and he knows enough about life to realise that that stuff never actually works out. No one holds up a boom box outside your window and confesses their love to you, it just doesn't happen.

So he's kind of stuck when it comes to thinking about taking that leap with Steve. He doesn't know how to go about it, but mostly he's just scared. He's scared that Steve will say no and that'll be the end of any friendship they could have had, and he's scared that Steve will say yes and realise later what a piece of shoddy work Bucky actually is and either a) put up with him because he's too nice to say otherwise, or b) leave him in the dead of night with a note saying that he can do better.

Both scenarios make Bucky's chest feel tight and cramped up, his throat hot, like his heart is trying to escape but is trapped. So he carries on as is, lets Steve doodle on his hands and arms and determinedly doesn't think about how it makes his skin tingle, walks home with him and tries not to stand too obviously close, shares his chocolate milk with him at lunch time and doesn't even notice how Steve wraps his lips around the straw and _sucks_.

The last one is a lie, obviously, and Nat has to kick him in the shin to get him to stop staring.

He spends the rest of May this way, the days getting longer and the birds chirping earlier in the morning, waking Bucky up hours before he wanted to actually be awake and making him into a grumpy bugger. He half heartedly jerks off most mornings, because thinking about Steve is just depressing considering his lack of progress in that area, but he can't exactly stop thinking about him entirely.

An absurdly hot day in the tail end of May spurs them all to pile into Sam's back yard for a hasty barbecue made up of burnt corn on the cobs and burgers and heaps of ketchup. There's music, and Clint sets up some sprinklers, and they spend the day messing about in the garden and pointing the hose at each other until they're all completely soaked.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, I'm wet," Bucky exclaims, shaking his clinging shirt away from his chest and shivering.

"That's what she said," laughs Clint, offering a high five that goes unmet unanimously by the entire group. "Oh come _on_ ," he whines, "I couldn't resist."

Sam snorts and rakes a hand through his hair. "I don't know how many spare shirts I have, it was laundry day yesterday," he says.

"It's okay," Steve points over his shoulder. "I can go next door and bring a few over."

And that's how Bucky ends up wearing one of Steve's shirts, stretching it out around the shoulders and arms and pretending that wearing a garment with a teddy bear on the front isn't seriously cramping his style.

"Aw, who's a little Bucky bear," crows Clint and Bucky hopes the force of his glare sets him spontaneously on fire.

When it doesn't, he turns to Steve and asks him why the fuck he owns a shirt like this. Steve just shrugs and hides his smile behind a can of coke.

"More importantly, why did you make me wear it?" he growls out.

Steve raises his eyebrows. "I didn't force you to do anything, you can take it off if you'd like."

Sam wolf whistles and Clint starts up a chant of 'strip, strip, strip, strip' until Bucky shrugs out of the damn thing and drops it in Steve's lap.

And that's how he ends up half naked in Sam's backyard on a warm May afternoon.

"I hope you're happy," he mutters to Steve out of the corner of his mouth.

"Oh, I'm _very_ happy," Steve says back, taking a swig of his drink and leaning back on his hands.

Bucky eyes him up, mouth twitching at the corners, before performing his signature move of staying completely still until he decides not to be anymore, and tackles Steve backwards onto the ground, stuffing handfuls of grass down his shirt.

Steve yelps and kicks his legs, hands turned into fierce fists that are punching bruises into Bucky's shoulders, and he can hear Clint hooting and hollering in the background, but all he cares about is the look on Steve's face when Bucky digs his fingers into his ribs, and the way his eyes screw up tight as he begs Bucky to stop tickling him, damnit, jesus, _please_.

"Not Jesus," Bucky pants finally, relenting. "But close."

Steve rolls his eyes and Bucky grins wickedly, meeting Nat's eyes over Steve's head. She raises one perfectly sculpted eyebrow at him and he just shrugs, popping open another can of coke, and carefully files away how it felt to have Steve wriggling around and begging underneath him to think about later.

~*~

School is still seriously boring, and Bucky actually starts to think he could get more work done at home than he actually achieves whilst in the building. It's sucking the life out of him, he thinks, the combination of lockers clanging and gossip and _homework assignments_ draining him completely dry until all he wants to do is curl up in a ball an not move for an entire week.

He's ended up applying for places at Berkely, Chicago, UCLA, Michigan, and, weirdly, MIT, because their modern languages programme actually looks pretty great. He's aiming for the Slavic Languages and Literatures programme at Chicago, because who doesn't want to learn about Croation and Serbian sentence structure. He knows Nat wants to do a few years abroad, Clint wants to become a nurse of all things, and both Sam and Steve want to join the army. Everyone knows that the kid will never be accepted, and Bucky finds it very hard to believe that Steve doesn't know that either, but he keeps on clinging fiercely to his dream and talking about it like it's the only option he's got.

Bucky's dozing in French class when Miss Hill announces a paired project, and his eyes immediately shoot to Steve who's already nodding at him like Bucky is the only clear choice here. It's some bullshit project on a biography of a famous French person, and Bucky can almost hear the inevitable presentations about Mary Antoinette and Edith Piaf echoing in his ears.

He drags his chair over to Steve, ignoring the glare from Hill over the screeching noise it produces, and hisses, "We are not doing Louis XVI or whatever bullshit historical figure everyone else will come up with," in Steve's ear.

Steve blinks at him a little, eyes wide and round.

"Well who are we gonna do then?"

Bucky drums his fingers against the table. "Come over to mine, we'll do some research and brainstorm."

Steve is nodding at him, and it's only later that Bucky realises that Steve's never been to his house before, that they've never been alone together for a long extended period of time before, and has a quiet panic attack that he hides in his locker door.

"Come on, jerk, before it starts to rain," Steve says behind him, kicking his foot into Bucky's calf lightly, and Bucky snorts.

"It's June, idiot, it's not gonna rain."

He's not wrong, and smirks the whole way back to his house when the sun just keeps on shining.

He and Steve dump their stuff in his room, and Bucky ends up standing awkwardly by his desk as Steve drinks in his surroundings. He tries to look at his room with new eyes, like Steve is, but all he can see are his shirts scattered on the floor, his language books piled messily on the shelves, the dorky posters pinned on the wall, the box of studs and wristbands and necklaces and chokers overflowing on his desk, the picture of him and his dad on his nightstand.

He waits anxiously for Steve's reaction, but all he does is turn to Bucky and ask, "You like Batman?"

"Huh?" Bucky replies, and Steve points at the poster above his bed.

"He's a cool superhero, I guess."

Steve raises his eyebrows. "Batman is not a superhero. Batman is a guy with lots of money who does vaguely heroic things that are washed out by his buckets of angst and general gloominess."

"You ever think of becoming a reviewer? That was scathing."

Steve snorts. "Oh come on, Bruce Wayne comes home at the exact same time as Batman first shows up and _no one_ in Gotham City notices?"

"Hey, for all you know I could be Batman. Have you ever seen us in the same room?"

"Okay, now you're being dumb," he glares at Bucky. "Sit down and shut up."

"I think you'll find that's my line," Bucky mumbles, but goes and sits on the bed, bringing his laptop with him.

"So," Steve starts, clicking the top of his pen. "Who're we gonna do for this project?"

"Anyone but the obvious ones, please, I'm begging you."

"I've heard that Bruce and Tony are doing Asterix and Obelix."

Bucky can just imagine how that presentation will go. "Yeah, no, we're not doing anything as dumb as that."

"Well I'm not hearing any suggestions," Steve singsongs. Cheeky little bugger.

"Well lets do some research, huh, punk? My mom won't be home till six, and you can stay for tea if you want, so I'll have plenty of time to veto all your stupid ideas."

"You're the one that's stupid," Steve mutters, but he shuffles closer to Bucky and the laptop so they can both start to google the shit out of historically famous French people together.

It's slow going, Bucky saying no Michel Roux Jr and Yves Saint Laurent on principle alone, but they eventually decide on Joan of Arc, who is just plain awesome in Bucky's book. They don't realise until much later that making a biography on her means explaining much of the context of the era and the ramifications of her impact, but they've chosen her now and he refuses to back out.

Steve takes a few days off work and spends much of the next week holed up in Bucky's room, and not in a fun and sexy way. They spend forever finding facts about her and then even longer trying to string it together into something coherent.

It has to be presented _in French_ , so Bucky has that part down pat, but Steve is determined to contribute, so he spends hours battling with tenses and verb endings and refusing to accept Bucky's help. Bucky usually messes about on Free Cell on his laptop when Steve decides to bury himself in his French books, tuning out his confused mumblings, until one day he realises the room has gone eerily quiet, and spins around to see Steve slumped over on his bed, fast asleep.

It's probably the most adorable thing Bucky has ever seen; Steve with his cheeks sleep warm and blushing, his mouth open just slightly, his chest rising and falling in soft bursts, and his hair flopping across his forehead. He snaps a picture and sends it to Nat with no caption, and she sends back ' _you're hopeless_ ' almost immediately.

They finish the project with two days to spare, and Steve still comes round to his house after school even though they have nothing to actually do. Bucky pops in a movie, _Batman Begins_ , just to be a jerk, and he and Steve sit on his bed with his laptop on their knees, socked feet just inches from each other.

Steve has his sketchbook out and is drawing a stunning picture of all of them sat together at their lunch bench, Sam laughing at Clint who has Pringles stuffed in his mouth like a duck, Nat glaring at the side of his head, and Bucky and Steve sat close together sharing chocolate milk. It's gorgeous in all it's detail, not even in colour but Steve manages to make it feel alive anyway.

"You ever think about applying to art school?" he asks before he can stop himself.

Steve's pencil stills on the page, and he keeps his eyes on his sketchbook, shoulders tense.

"You know I wanna join the army," he says shortly.

Bucky breathes a messy gulp of air, in and out. "You're just, you're so good Steve, so good, you could go really far."

Steve's shoulders slump all of the sudden, and he reaches a hand up to scrub it through the longer hair on the top of his head. "It's not like I haven't thought about it," he admits.

Bucky waits patiently, quietly, and he continues. "I just, I really wanna be in the army."

"Steve," he says gently. "I don't think that's really an option for you."

He can tell Steve's thinking about all the times he's had to go for his inhaler while running a simple four hundred metre jog by the way his eyes glaze over, all the days he's missed school for check ups at the hospital, the heart murmur he has that's never going to go away. He’s staring blankly ahead, not looking at Bucky.

"I just wanted to be like my dad, you know?"

Bucky nods. "I know. I think everyone wants to be like their dad. You'll figure it out, pal."

Steve nods jerkily, and Bucky returns to watching the film and pretends he can't see Steve hastily wipe his eyes. He slings his arm over Steve's skinny shoulders instead, pulls him in close, and let's Steve rest his head in the crook of his neck for the rest of the movie.

It's not like it's a hardship, to have Steve lean on him every once in a while.

~*~

Sam might be a giant dork in jock's clothing, but Bucky likes him, so when his mom surreptitiously sends them all an email about a surprise birthday party she's throwing for Sam's eighteenth in the middle of June, Bucky immediately accepts.

It's a dumb fancy dress thing, 'dress like someone you know', and Bucky decides to be a cop out and go as Clint, who is the easiest in their group to copy. He buys a purple shirt and rips the sleeves off to create a tank top and shoves some sunglasses on his face. He actually goes as far to strip the pink out of his bangs and re-dye it all blonde, which makes him look fucking ridiculous, but so much like Clint it hurts. He spikes it up with gel for good measure, and heads to Sam's house trying very hard not to let people see it's him walking around with a botched blonde dye job.

The party is pretty much in full swing by the time Bucky shows up, skin warm from the June air. He walks in and immediately spots Tony dressed up as his sort-of girlfriend Pepper with a bright orange wig jammed on his head, teetering around in a pair of heels and a little black dress. This pretty much sets the tone of the whole evening, and Bucky spots Bruce and Peter dressed up as each other, -having swapped lab coats and glasses, putting even less effort into dressing up than Bucky has- sees Thor, the European exchange student, swishing around in black leather and an eyepatch, Darcy with a drawn-on goatee and suit, and Nat wearing a plaid shirt tucked into a pair of khakis, shoes shined and hair slicked and parted.

She laughs when she sees him. "It seems that we've done a couples thing."

"What?" Bucky asks, confused and peering around the room like it will help him figure out what the fuck she's on about.

She points towards Clint, stood by the snacks table and balancing about six mini pizzas in his palm, wearing Nat's leather jacket and a pair of girls skinny jeans, red wig perched on top of his head.

"I still don't get it," he says.

Nat raises an eyebrow, and the look in her eye scares him a little, like she knows something he doesn't. As she does a good ninety percent of the time, in his experience. She points over his shoulder, and he turns to see Steve stood in the doorway.

Who is dressed up exactly like Bucky.

He gapes for a few seconds, drinking in Steve's ripped skinny jeans and makeshift red bandana belt, black shirt with the sleeves cut jaggedly, leather wristbands thick on his wrists. His eyes have been painted expertly with eyeliner, and Bucky thinks detachedly that Nat must have helped him with that, and his hair- the tips of his hair are hanging in his eyes and are actually dyed a neon shade of _pink_.

He looks like everything Bucky didn't even _know_ he wanted before tonight.

He feels like he might have sworn, or whimpered, or done something equally as embarrassing, because Nat pats him on the shoulder and pushes him in Steve's direction. He stumbles, eyes wide, and Steve sees him and lifts a hand in a wave. Bucky can see that his nails are painted black, and his breath punches out of him in one go.

"Jesus Christ, Stevie, you tryna give me a heart attack?" he exclaims, covering up his previous stumble.

"Nice hair," Steve laughs, eyes crinkling at the corners in the way they do when he's truly happy.

Bucky runs a hand self-consciously through his hair, quickly, because he'd forgotten it's not its usual colour until Steve had pointed it out. He groans internally, thinking of how hot Steve looks right now and how he looks in comparison, bottle blond and wearing shades indoors.

"Come on," he slings an arm around Steve's skinny shoulders, "I need a fuckin' drink."

He keeps Steve plastered to his side pretty much the whole night, apart from when Sam enters the room and everyone cheers and sets off party poppers, startling the shit out of him. He jumps about seven feet, and Steve claps him on the shoulder as hard as he's seemingly able to, Sam tugging on the pink in his hair in retaliation but laughing all the same. There's a cake, and Steve and Bucky stand side by side and sing off-key together, butchering happy birthday completely but grinning like two loons in a loony bin, the candle light flickering in Steve's pretty eyes.

The night goes on and things get weird, Tony performing a strangely entrancing strip tease with a feather boa he procured from somewhere on Sam's lap, the crowd chanting and laughing around them. The music is loud, and not what he usually listens to, but it's got a beat and a bass and he's happy to hum along, buzzing a little from the beer and his arm around Steve's waist.

It had graduated there when Steve had spotted Nat, dressed up like him, and snorted half his drink up his nose. Bucky had to pay his back for a good minute, offering him the spare inhaler he'd taken to carrying around with him whenever he hangs out with Steve, but Steve just waved it off, spluttering a little. He'd kept his palm on the centre of Steve's back after that, between his shoulder blades, and it had gravitated to become wrapped securely around his waist as the level of beer in his bottle decreased, bit by bit.

Steve's waist feels tiny beneath his palm, fragile, like it's something that needs to be cradled gently. Bucky thinks about wrapping his arms around Steve's middle and pulling his back to Bucky's front, grinding his dick forward into the tight parting of Steve's thighs, and shudders, suddenly feeling very hot under the collar.

He starts to walk towards the front garden, but Steve pulls him back, pouting, and Bucky absolutely does not entertain the thought of leaning in and biting Steve's bottom lip, watching it blossom the same cherry red as all those lollipops that Bucky sucks on.

"I don't wanna leave yet," he protests, digging his heels in and putting up a bit of resistance.

Bucky hesitates, before leaning in close to Steve's ear, his neck and part of his shoulder clearly visible due to the adjustments he's made to his shirt with scissors, and saying, "I just need some air."

Steve nods, touches Bucky's wrist, and heads outside. Bucky watches him go and grabs his jacket from the pile near the door, the only part of his outfit that isn't meant to look like Clint, because he never goes anywhere without his leather jacket.

Steve's sat on the low wall that runs around Sam's front garden, dangling his feet down the edges and facing the road and the setting sun. Bucky clambers up next to him, silent and sure of his footing, enjoying the colours in the sky and the pretty shades they turn Steve's skin. The music is faded in the background, leaving just the two of them kicking their feet off the wall, sitting side by side.

"I just can't get over this, pal," he murmurs, staring at Steve's... Well, Steve's everything. From the pink in his hair and the fake cuffs around his ears, his scrawny biceps set off by the ripped shirt he's wearing, to the skinny jeans low on his hips and the way his wrists look framed by all the black wristbands he's got piled on.

Steve laughs. "It took forever to figure out how to dye my hair properly. Peggy had to come help me."

"Well, she learned from the best."

He snorts. "Yeah, she wouldn't shut up about you, Bucky this and Bucky that- you know, I think she might have a crush on you."

He's still looking at the sunset, fiddling with his fingers in his lap, and Bucky stares at the side of his face before replying, "Nah," nonchalantly, like it’s laughable for anyone to have a crush on him.

Just because he _wants_ Steve to like him back, doesn't mean he actually _does_.

Steve breathes out through his nose, before shivering all over all of the sudden.

"You cold?" Bucky asks.

He shakes his head. "I think someone just walked over my grave."

Bucky pulls a face and Steve laughs at him, shoulders shaking. He's still shuddering a little though, enough that Bucky thinks he lied about not being cold.

"Why haven't you got a jacket on?"

"I couldn't find one that looked like yours," he admits. "It's one of a kind, Buck."

Bucky blinks, and before he can think about it he's sliding out of his jacket and placing it gently over Steve's shoulders, ignoring the way Steve's eyes have gone wide and his mouth has fallen open, staring at Bucky like he can't believe what he's doing. Bucky dusts imaginary lint off the shoulders, and hums. Steve looks good in his jacket.

"There," he says. "Now you don't have to lie about not being cold."

Steve attempts a scowl, but the corners of his lips betray him. "I wasn't lying, jerk," but he shrugs the jacket on more fully, sliding his arms into the holes and rolling back the sleeves a little where they fall across his hands.

They sit in silence on the wall, the sun setting behind the clouds and the tops of the trees and houses, feet kicking in time with each other. Bucky let's his eyes slip shut and enjoys having Steve's body pressed up against his, the feel of his warmth seeping into the small space between them.

Sam stumbles out after a few minutes, laughing loudly and hanging onto the doorframe. There's a purple party hat crookedly attached to his head, making him look like an idiot, but he's grinning hard enough that it makes Bucky want to smile too.

"Come on, lovebirds, we're having a group photo!" he calls out, and Steve flushes bright red but hops of the wall, laughing when Sam pretends to lasso him in an imaginary rope and pull him forwards. Bucky watches him go, watches the way his shoulders are swamped by the fabric of Bucky's jacket, the way his ass looks in those skinny jeans. Then he jumps off the wall too, following Steve and Sam back into the house where everyone is gathered in the kitchen, waiting for Steve and Bucky to join the little group photo.

He ends up mashed between Steve and Tony, his side plastered to Steve's and Tony hanging off his arm in a dramatic fashion, wig wonky and heels far too high. He asks Sam's mom after if she can email him the photo, and she pats him on the cheek and calls him a good young man, tells him that if he fetches her a drink he can have it printed and framed.

He loses Steve after that, wandering around the house and peering in rooms, and then pretending that he wasn't looking for anyone in particular and leaving. He can see Nat roll her eyes in his direction more than once, spots her mouthing ' _pathetic_ ' at him, and sticks his tongue out at her, just because he can.

He leaves later than he expected to, because he wanted to see Steve before he went, but the kid is nowhere to he found, so he sighs and chalks it up to fate. It's only later that he realises Steve still has his leather jacket on.

~*~

He strips his hair of the horrible blonde as soon as he's awake and alert the next morning, his mom blinking at him over her cereal and pointedly not saying anything about his awful hair. He silently thanks her by washing both their bowls up, then heads upstairs with some Colour Zap, waits an hour, and washes it out again. Looking in the mirror, his hair is back to its normal brown, if a little lighter at the ends than normal.

He'd used up his pink hair dye after Steve suggested it, will have to go to the shops for more, so he just leaves it as it is for the moment. He thinks he looks weird with no colour in his hair, maybe good, but just plain different. His features look softer, his eyes more blue, and he just looks like... a regular guy. Granted, a regular guy with seven ear piercings, but still.

He wonders what Steve would think, if Steve would like it, and then shakes himself out of those dumb thoughts and gets on with homework instead. He already thinks too much about Steve, there's no point in soppily smiling in the mirror and imagining Steve running his long fingers through Bucky's hair, au naturale.

The next day is a Sunday, traditionally the day Bucky and his mom head to the shops to stock up for the week, and he spends a good three minutes staring blankly at his hook by the door wondering where the fuck he's put his jacket. Then it clicks: he remembers placing his jacket carefully over Steve's shoulders and then losing him towards the tail end of Sam's party, so Steve must still have it.

It feels weird, walking around in public without his jacket on. His arms feel uncomfortably bare, and even though he goes out in short sleeves all the time, his jacket is still there just in case he wants to put it on. But he hasn't got it now, now it's all the way across town, and he follows his mom around the aisles of the shopping center morosely, shivering in the cold food sections and itching to grab his phone.

He would have texted Steve already if he didn't know his mom would smack his fingers for texting his friends while in public with her. So he has to wait, tapping his feet when she dawdles over which cereal to buy, before she shoots him a look and sighs, telling him to go wait in the car.

He takes off immediately, already palming his phone from his back pocket, and shoots off a text to Steve.

 **Bucky:** you still have my jacket punk

He waits a few minutes, turns on the radio in the car, flicks it off again, and taps his fingers against the steering wheel.

 **Steve:** damn i didn't notice sorry

 **Bucky:** i'll come get it okay

 **Steve:** uh sure

He frowns at the phone screen, sees Steve start to type something and then stop, and then start again.

 **Steve:** no hurry

Bucky hears his mom slam the trunk closed, startling him as he didn't even know she was there. She raises her eyebrow at him and he holds up his phone.

"Steve has my jacket," he gives as an explanation.

Her eyebrow raises even further. "I mean, I gave Steve my jacket and now he's... still got it?"

She just keeps staring at him, looking more and more amused by the second. His slumps down in his seat.

"If you could drop me off at his, that'd be great," he mumbles, looking anywhere but at her.

She starts the car, still looking amused, and comments, "I had wondered where your jacket was. You never go anywhere without it."

"He looked cold," he says, quietly.

"Pardon?" And Bucky _knows_ she heard him, glares at her, but repeats anyway: "Steve looked _cold_."

"Well, I did raise you to he a gentleman," she replies.

He scowls and slides down farther in his seat, looking out the window at the passing tree line and ignoring her smug presence in the seat next to him. If he didn't know moms were there for an actual reason, he'd be convinced she was put on the planet specifically to pester and embarrass him.

"Hey," she says, putting her hand on his arm after she pulls up outside Steve's house and halting him in the process of getting the fuck out of the car as soon as possible. "Just tell him you like him, or," she shrugs, "if all else fails, kiss him."

He's got one foot out of the door, his mom's hand on his elbow, and is so red he could he mistaken for a fire truck.

"Oh my- _Mom_ , I don't- oh my _god_ ," he chokes out. She pats him on the forearm and starts the car. Bucky makes as quick an escape as he can, slamming the door closed after him, but she just rolls the window down.

"Bring him 'round so I can meet him properly," she says.

"You've met him before, Mom! Multiple times!" he exclaims.

"Yeah but," she slides on some sunglasses, "I've never been introduced to him as your boyfriend."

She drives away before Bucky can get another word in edgeways, and _damn_ his mother for being so goddamn smooth. He certainly didn't get that gene from her, he thinks.

He stands on the sidewalk and blushes furiously before burying his head in his hands and feeling how hot it is to the touch. He decides to stay out in the cool air while the redness in his cheeks recedes, but Steve takes that decision away from him by opening his room's window inside the house and yelling, "What the hell are you doing standing out there like a lemon for? Get in, jerk," and slamming the window shut again.

Bucky blinks for a bit. Steve seems to be in a mood.

He lets himself into the house, says hello to Mrs Rogers on the way up to Steve's room, only to find him sat on the bed with his shoulders slumped, clutching a bunch of official looking papers in his hand.

"Hey Stevie," he says, approaching quietly. "What'cha got there?"

Steve sighs. "I decided to apply to art school, like you suggested?" Bucky's heart thumps in his chest, hard. "These are... They accepted me, Buck."

"Jesus Christ Steve! Why'd you look like someone ran over your dog then?"

Steve's head jerks up, startled. Bucky rolls his eyes. "No one ran over your dog, you don't even _have_ a goddamn dog."

"Oh. Yeah. Uhm, I just-" he swallows. "I just didn't think they'd actually accept me," he says in a whisper.

As Bucky stares at his skinny frame, his shoulder blades visible through his shirt, his cheekbones sharp, all elbows and knees and long fingers, lungs rattling inside his ribs, he thinks he gets it. Steve never thought he was good enough.

He slings an arm over Steve's shoulders, and, before he can think to stop himself, presses a kiss to the crown of Steve's head.

"You've still got pink in your hair," he murmurs, tugging at Steve's bangs where he's not bothered to slick it down.

Steve laughs wetly, replies, "Your hair's all brown and normal." He wrinkles his nose. "I don't like it."

Bucky grins and holds him tighter, resting his cheek on top of Steve's head. "You'll have to choose the next colour soon then."

He moves his hand to unclench Steve's fingers from where they're creasing the paper, gently holding his hand until he relaxes, reading the papers as he does so.

"This is amazing, Stevie," he whispers. "You did good."

"Thanks, Buck."

Bucky takes the papers from him fully, letting go of Steve and bringing both his legs up on the bed to sit with them crossed underneath him.

"So where'd you apply, huh?" he asks, even though he can read where they're from on the letters. He keeps his eyes on the page though, drinking in the _congratulations_ and the _delighted to accept you_ 's printed all over them, lets Steve wipe his eyes in privacy.

"Uh," he replies. "Rhode Island School of Design, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the California Institute of the Arts."

Bucky tries not to get too excited. "And which one's your favourite?"

"Either Rhode Island or Chicago, I-" he swallows. "I just don't know."

Bucky reaches out and places a tentative hand on the centre of his back. "You don't gotta decide now," he says.

Steve nods quickly, rubs his hands down his thighs, and crosses the room to pick up Bucky's jacket from where it was slung across the back of his desk chair.

"There you go," he says, tossing it in Bucky's direction and nearly hitting him in the face. "Now you can walk around and pretend to be all punk again."

"Dammit Steve, how many times do I gotta tell you, you're the goddamn punk!"

Steve smirks, the corners of his mouth turned up, and Bucky can't believe how beautiful he is in this moment.

He's up and across the room before he can change his mind, taking his mom's advice and pressing his lips to Steve's, cradling his face in his palms. Steve goes completely still and Bucky pulls back, immediately turning his back to Steve and covering his face with his hands.

"Shit, I'm sorry- I'm so sorry, I'm just gonna- leave, I'm gonna go, shit shit shit," he mumbles, half of it directed at Steve and half at himself. He almost trips over his own feet trying to leave and not look at Steve at the same time, and Steve's hands shoot out to steady him and then hold on tightly, preventing Bucky from escaping through the door.

He swallows and stares at his feet, heart in his throat and something in the vicinity of his ribcage feeling like it's cracked open and aching.

"Are you- you're gonna leave?" Steve asks. "Now?"

"I think it's for the best," he says lowly.

"You mean, that was a mistake, that you... regret that?" Steve's voice cracks down the middle, and Bucky has to fight with everything he has not to look at Steve, who sound miserable.

"I shouldn't have," is all he says, still staring at his feet.

He feels Steve's hands go slack where they're clutching at his shirt, still holding on but a lot less tightly. "Oh," he breathes.

Bucky gives in and lifts his head, looking at Steve's shocked face and vacant eyes, wide and wet and destroying Bucky's self control.

"I'll just- _We'll_ just forget it ever happened, okay? And I'll get over it, I will." He licks his lips. "Probably. Hopefully. I mean, odds aren't looking great since I've had a crush on you for the past four and a half years but, I'll try, I promise," he adds, laughing high and reedy.

Steve blinks at him. "Wait, what?"

Bucky blinks back. "I'm sorry I kissed you and forced you into an awkward situation where you now have to tell me I'm just your friend?" he ventures. That's what his nervous babbling was trying to get at anyway.

"You're not my friend," he says, and his hands are starting to fist tighter into the material of Bucky's shirt again.

"Are you gonna tell me we were never friends, because that's just cruel and hurtful and I'd be really upset," he babbles, confused and bracing himself for the worst.

Steve laughs, a happy smile breaking across his face. "Oh my god, you- you _jerk_ -" he stutters, and uses his leverage on Bucky's shirt to pull him close and smash his lips to his again.

"Steve-" he tries to say, but Steve just keeps on kissing him, his tongue flicking at the corner of Bucky's mouth and startling a surprised moan out of him, making his eyes flutter shut.

"You thought I didn't like you?" Steve asks, incredulous, between kisses. "You are the dumbest person on the planet," he tugs on Bucky's bottom lip, "I can't believe," and his hands are in Bucky's hair, "You actually thought that," he licks across the seam of Bucky's lips, "I didn't like you back, you giant moron."

Bucky pulls back, blinking dazedly at Steve, who is grinning brightly enough to rival the sun. He can feel his face break out into a smile, hard and fast and happy, it finally hitting him that Steve totally just kissed him back, and now looks like the cat who got the cream.

"My mom wants to meet you," he says, laughing at the way Steve's eyebrows furrow in his confusion.

"What? I've already met her," he replies.

"Yeah but," and Bucky plus him closer, his hands on Steve's tiny waist and their chests now pressed together. "In an official capacity like, 'this is my boyfriend Steve' and all that jazz."

Steve throws his head back and laughs, eyes squeezed together and skinny shoulders shaking. "I haven't any objections," he murmurs. "Now would you come here and kiss me?"

Bucky does what he says, pressing kiss after kiss after kiss to Steve's lips, his heart beating wildly in his chest and feeling Steve's heart thumping in the same rhythm.

~*~

School is a whole lot more fun now he can convince Steve to skip class with him and make out behind the shed instead of learning trig, or whatever bullshit their teachers are trying to cram down their throats.

They've not gone far yet, apart from that one time after Sam's last ever track event where they got invited to a party and ended up completely trashed and in an upstairs room, Bucky holding Steve up against the door and Steve's legs wrapped around his hips, their underwear shoved down far enough so their dicks could grind together hotly. Clint likes to poke fun at him, mock him, because apparently the image he presents to the world says 'I will fuck you up if you so much as look at me wrong', when really he blushes like a virgin whenever Steve holds his hand in the hallways.

He's not a virgin (he and Nat got it over and done with together, ending up on opposite sides of the bed and swearing up and down that they'd never do that again, holy shit), but Steve is, and he actually wants to take it slow, to make out with Steve for hours on end without his hands ever wandering south of the border. They've got all summer, so why rush?

But right now, Steve is curling his hands in Bucky's freshly dyed hair (red this time, as per Steve's choice), licking into his mouth and tasting like the cherry lollipops Bucky still likes to suck on. It's warm, and sunny, and Bucky couldn't be happier, pressing his smile into Steve's lips and hoping it stays for good.

And when Steve pulls back and holds up his hand in the universal signal for 'stop', Bucky sits back and breathes hard, watches Steve scramble for his inhaler and take a deep breath. He falls back laughing, Steve scowling at him, and Bucky props himself up on his elbows and gives him a soft kiss, pulling Steve down on top of his chest.

"You're a goddamn jerk, you know that?" he pants.

Bucky hums. "I'm your jerk, punk," he replies, smiling.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1) a pavilion is kind of a small building for sports equipment and a place where people can change on match days and stuff so they don't have to traipse all the way to the actual changing rooms
> 
> 2) rebecca is canon hell yeah!!!! she's bucky's sister in the comics, but theresa and ruby are made up and i only realised after, and then decided i didn't care 
> 
> 3) punk!bucky turned out not to be that punk at all, sorry about that
> 
> 4) inspiration for this fic comes from these [these](http://murphels.tumblr.com/post/84204480251/high-school-au-where-badboy-bucky-begrudgingly) [text](http://thylaas.tumblr.com/post/85784012288/modern-au-punk-bucky-and-geek-steve-doing-some) posts, which basically made me want to shoot myself in the face, and then write 15k of fic based around them
> 
> 5) for those unfamiliar with my obsession with bucky wearing steve's wings/have no idea what the fuck i'm on about when i say 'steve's wings', go [here](http://static.tumblr.com/wexd2e4/gOgn6jin5/wings_evidence.png) uwu
> 
> 6) i live for comments, so please please tell me what you think!


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